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Happy New Year! Resolution, Lesson Learned?

Happy new year, all. The JFP office is closed today, which may be the first time ever we've been closed on a business day. (We've often been open on holidays!) But the staff deserves a rest before this crazy legislative session kicks off! And don't worry: We put the legislative preview to bed Friday, so the paper is on its regular schedule.

Silent No More

Early on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day, a group of anti-abortion Mississippians gathered to erect 2,000 crosses on the lawn of the Mississippi State Capitol as a "A Memorial to the Unborn." Pro-Life Mississippi joined with the Knights of Columbus Council, a Catholic men's group, to place the crosses after getting permission from Gov. Haley Barbour's office, Pat Carterette, executive director of Pro-Life Mississippi, told the JFP. Last year, Gov. Ronnie Musgrove's office approved the anti-abortion campaign, which was conceived by a national anti-abortion coalition, Silent No More, which has organized similar protests in cities throughout the United States.

Easley Says Fellow Justices ‘Screwed Me'

As reported last Wednesday, Aug. 27, Mississippi Supreme Court Judge Chuck Easley told the Jackson Free Press last week that a pro-business bloc on the court is attempting to strip other members of their seniority status. "They screwed me. They screwed (Supreme Court Justice James) Graves," Easley said.

Jackson's Year in Review Timeline

Jan. 2 – State Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, announces his candidacy for mayor of Jackson.

Abused Girls Sue State

The top administrator of Columbia Training School directly ordered that girls be shackled at the ankles for as long as a month, in violation of state policy and federal law, and at least one male guard sexually abused a female student, with staff then ignoring complaints about the abuse.

Defense More Difficult This Time

Jackson Mayor Frank Melton will be back again in court July 16 for the Aug. 26, 2006, destruction of a duplex on Ridgeway Streetan incident first reported by the Jackson Free Press on Sept. 1, 2008.

Health-Care Reform to Dump Poor Kids?

Oleta Fitzgerald, director of the Children's Defense Fund's Southern Regional Office, says she is concerned over the welfare of Mississippi children if either of the two health-care reform packages considered by the U.S. House and Senate ever make it into law.

[Questions] Danny Goldberg Takes on Teen Spirit

Just months before the 2002 election, Danny Goldberg, the music industry macher who shells out big bucks to progressive causes, received an invitation to a Democratic Party fundraiser. The invite featured the following quote: "Never before in modern history has the essential differences between the two major political parties stood out in such striking contrast, as they do today."-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1945. Goldberg could not believe what he read. "It seemed to me a terrible commentary on today's Democrats that they had to go back to the 1940s to evoke a contrast with Republicans," writes Goldberg in "Dispatches From The Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit," (Miramax, 2003). His debut book delivers a blunt warning to Democrats: get with it or get trounced.

Let the Games Begin

A lobbyist has become the second Republican governor since Reconstruction; the lieutenant governor turned Republican in the middle of her last term; the first new speaker of the house has been elected in 16 years. No matter how strange things seem, they always make perfect sense within the context of Mississippi politics. And now more than one political observer thinks state legislators might start making law along party lines.

2009 JFP Interview with Frank Melton, Part VI: Of Alcohol and Guns

In his office in February, Mayor Frank Melton talked about many issues with the Jackson Free Press. Here is an excerpt about his past abuse of alcohol and, if true, some surprising revelations about the guns he used to strap on himself to conduct nighttime "raids" in Jackson before the authorities told him to stop carrying weapons.

About Time: CNN Does "The Palins and the Fringe" Story

Over a month after the JFP story, "Palin and the Fringe," and about 10 days after Sarah Palin launched a vicious "terrorist" smear campaign against Barack Obama, CNN did a long piece today about the Palins' connections to the anti-government patriot movement in Alaska:

Reported H2B Kidnapping in Pascagoula

It seems like each of these immigration posts builds off another. The last time I blogged, I brought attention to inherent flaws in the guest worker program, a modern form of indentured servitude, and what served as a psuedo-alternative to "amnesty" in debate over the since-failed immigration reform bill. An increase in the guest worker program (also known as H2B), which has existed in its current state since 1986, was in fact a major part of the bill. However, despite the bill's failure to pass through Senate, the guest worker program persists as one form of "legal immigration" (though one that provides no eventual path to citizenship). Now, according to allegations reported by the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, the program's systematic disenfranchisement of worker rights may have resulted in a horrifying case of police brutality in Pascagoula, Miss.

Brett Favre - Make up Your Mind

What is it with these athletes that retire and within months are ready to come back? I don't get it! And this is retirement number two for Brett. Do you think that maybe he was forced to retire? Did he get home and decide, naaa, I can't do this? This happens quite frequently in todays sports' world so what's the deal with that?

Let Us Pray

Here I am, a spit and polish away from 30, and I still can't figure out what the hell that means.

I remember that time when I was 5 or 6 years old, sitting in my Southern Baptist Sunday school class, as the teacher told us about the parting of the Red Sea. And I turned to the sweet old lady and said with a big smile: "It was magic!" No, Tommy, it was a miracle. Only the devil does magic.

Taco Nirvana

Who doesn't like a good taco? Whether it's a 69-cent American version or an authentic Mexican taqueria-style, tacos are good any way you eat them.

ROAD TRIP: A Hill Girl Does Rocky Springs

I had no idea just how geographically snobbish Mississippians could be until the mother of a college friend from the Gulf Coast smugly remarked, "Sooo, you're from the hill country." Now, I grew up in Tupelo, only six hours from her family's ancestral home, but you would have thought I had just hobbled out from behind a still with a corncob pipe clenched in my teeth and a moonshine jug slung over my shoulder. But I was happy to forgive her indiscretion when I was served my first mint julep complete on her grandmother's silver with fresh mint sprigs from the garden while I watched the sun sink into the Gulf from her front-porch swing.

WINE: L'Affaire du Vin

Norm Rush will never forget his first. In the most soulful baritone voice this side of Barry White, he imparts every detail. Rush positively glows as he recounts that one sacred moment of passion when the light came on and the world made sense. He was 19, working at the well-regarded Lily Marlene's Restaurant at Church Street Station in Orlando, Fla., when renowned sommelier and wine expert Reid Rapport introduced him to a luscious, leggy 1966 Haut-Brion. "I can still smell it and taste it after all these years," he said in a voice as luscious as that Bordeaux beauty. (My friends say he's "dishy," the tall, dark and handsome type, but I'm a married woman. I don't notice that kind of thing.)

Dust-Up on Floor of U.S. Senate Today

[Breaking] Apparently, it was just disocvered that Republicans snuck a provision into the 3,000-page budget bill that allows agents of congressional committees to have access to anybody's IRS records. They're fighting about it right now on C-SPAN II. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is yelling right now that they never "intend" to use the power. BIG FIGHT.

The Killen Verdict, Explained

FBI/AP pool photo

"Preacher" Edgar Ray Killen's jury trial has ended; he was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of the three young men on June 21, 1964. On June 23, 2005, Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced Killen to the maximum allowed under Mississippi law: 60 years (20 years for each homicide). Killen will be held in isolation at the Central Mississippi Correctional Institute until a state "classification" process is completed. Killen will be labeled either a medium or a maximum security prisoner and will remain in the Rankin County prison or be shipped to Parchman to serve his time. In either case, he will be in isolation in a cell for 23 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Weekends and holidays, he will remain in his cell for 24 hours a day.

Hedonistically Healthy

I'm not big on deprivation. Never have been, and I've been blessed to not feel like I've had to deprive myself much over the years in order to be healthy or to maintain a decent weight. Of course, I suppose I've been blessed that I'm not a big fan of many habits that are really bad for you, like eating meat or smoking. To me, those things aren't hedonistic pleasures. They are habits that offend my sensibilities.

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